The Ravishing One (8 page)

Already the wine flowing from fountains and the potent punch passing amongst the revelers had affected the mood of the crowds. Gaming tables had been hauled out of the house onto the back-facing balcony. Laughter erupted, flushed like grouse from little queues of guests, and the dancers reeled in each other’s arms even though the current dance called for no “reels” at all.

“Damn poor excuse for a costume,” a slurred voice hailed him. Thomas turned to find a portly figure draped in a red toga weaving his way.

“Do you think so? And here I’d thought I made a right nasty-looking pirate.”

“No,” the man sniffed. “Just look disreputable. I came afoul a pirate once meself, so I know, y’see.”

“Don’t say,” Thomas murmured, trying to place the man. He’d the look of a banker, complacent and shrewd.

“Mmm.” The fellow nodded. “Off the north coast of Madagascar. A pirate vessel overtook the ship I was on. I, of course, wanted to fight but the captain would have none of it, and so we were boarded.” He paused to belch.

“Heathenish creatures they were,” he continued, “a menagerie of nations and types. Foul, hard, and”—he peered woozily at Thomas—“as brown as you. Very well, I grant you’re the proper shade, but a real pirate would never dress so shabbily.”

“Really?”

“Ought to be wearing your booty, or whatever you call it. Ought to be showin’ off.”

“Perhaps I’m not a very successful pirate,” Thomas demurred.

The man leaned forward and pressed a stubby finger to the side of his nose. “That’s not what I hear.”

“Oh?”

“I hear”—the man cast a furtive glance to his left and right—“I hear that you do right well by yourself—and some”—his smile grew unctuous—“lucky investors. Perhaps I ought to hire your vessel for my next shipment, eh? Double me profits like our most ravishing toast has done.”

Thomas smiled mildly as every one of his senses sharpened. Over the last few days he’d overheard dozens of such mysterious allusions. But each time he’d confronted the speakers they’d backtracked and feigned ignorance. This was the first time he’d come close to any real information.

“I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning.”

The fellow scowled and peered more closely at Thomas’s face. “Blast me. You ain’t Barton, are you? Oops.” The man hid his smile behind his hand, like a naughty child. “Well, damn me for a loose-lipped limpet. No offense meant. Thought I was talking to your partner. Both of you bein’ the same color and all …”

He scurried off, leaving Thomas to consider whether to follow and press him for more information. But a party was hardly the place. He would have to wait.

Preoccupied with his thoughts, he continued along one of the dark, winding paths.

“Such a terrible scowl, Monsieur Buccaneer,” a French-accented female voice whispered behind him. Before he could turn around, the end of a pistol barrel prodded him in the back. He’d felt that distinctive impression too many times to be mistaken. He stood very, very still.

“Tch, tch
. Nothing to say?” she asked.

He forced his shoulder muscles to relax. “Indeed not. Not yet.”

“Oh? Then you foresee a return to eloquence in the near future?” The end of the pistol jabbed him again.

“I don’t know that I can promise eloquence, milady, but certainly some few words.”

She laughed, and he smiled involuntarily.

This was madness. Not only that she’d provoked a smile in the midst of threatening him but that she threatened him at all. They were only a few yards from other people. She couldn’t possibly seek to rob him here and get away with it. But what better place for a thief to ply her trade then at night at a masque held in an open field?

He lifted his hands from his sides. “May I turn?”

“Certainly,” she whispered. He turned slowly around and found himself looking at the ivory-knobbed handle of a closed fan—the “pistol” barrel. He raised his gaze to an extraordinarily gorgeous pair of blue eyes.

Their brilliance was only slightly dimmed by the shadow cast by her artfully wrought silver mask. It covered her upper face and left exposed a luscious and naughtily curving mouth, a delicately angled chin, and a long graceful neck—a neck he’d dearly love to set his hands about.

“I hope you enjoyed yourself, Fia.” He would have known her anywhere.

“Not Fia,” she said. “But yes, I did.” She snapped open her fan and flirtatiously covered her mouth.

A soft, slender egret’s feather dangling from her ear caressed her bosom, drawing attention to the creamy skin embraced by a low-cut black bodice. Black and silver composed the entire gown, the ebony material some matte, light-eating fabric, the silver so reflective that it gleamed like a mirror. Shadow and starlight, darkness warring with light.

His gaze traveled up and for the first time he noted that she’d completely covered her blue-black curls with an elaborate silver-lacquered wig bedecked with black roses.

“Do you want to know my name?” she teased in a sultry voice. “Do you want to know who I
really
am?”

She moved closer on a whisper of taffeta and velvet. Slowly, purposefully, she raised an elegant hand as though to touch him. He waited, suddenly restive to discover what so many other men before him already knew. Her hand hovered. Neared …

The blue gaze lifted to his. Her lips formed a slow, all-too-knowing smile. Her hand dropped to her side.

“I have many names.” She stepped back and he followed,
drawn in spite of himself. “The Queen of the Night. The Black Damsel …” Her eyes glittered with merciless amusement. “Lady Longing.”

She moved past him, leaving him behind as she drifted out of the torchlight’s range and into the shadows beyond. He waited. Watched. Her heavy skirts bruised the midsummer grasses, bringing forth their rich, sweet scent. She paused and curtsyed deeply, the silver in her dark robes gleaming and disappearing. “Good night, fainthearted pirate.”

She was mocking him. In a few broad strides he caught up with her, took hold her arm, and spun her to face him. He expected her to resist. Instead, she tumbled easily into his embrace, as though she’d expected it.

He should release her. Walk away. Damn her provocation and her triumphant smile. But she’d nestled close—or had he pulled her there? Either way, he held her hand tight against his heart.

He looked down into her masked and upturned face. She did not look frightened. The blue eyes gleaming up at him held a rich, complicated brew of humor and anger and triumph. But no fear.

Impression after impression crowded his senses. The scent of her seductive, night-blooming perfume, the silken texture of her skin, the flavor of her warm breath, and the overriding realization of how very small she was, how light and petite.

It would be so easy to hurt her.

To stop her.

To kiss her
.

He dropped her hand. She laughed again, as though she’d foreseen this, too. And why not? She was an expert in such matters. She played him as easily as she did Barton.

“I’ve no taste for this game, Fia.”

“Why do you persist in calling me Fia when I’ve told you that I am not the lady you assume me to be?” she asked with sly merriment.

“Well, there’s one way to find out, isn’t there?” He raised his hand to her mask. Her smile froze. Her breath grew shallow.

“You won’t unmask me,” she whispered.

“Why not?”

“Because you came willingly to a masque and thus have tacitly agreed to abide by the rules, the most important of those being never to expose one unwilling to be exposed.”

His finger stroked a ruffled black feather edging her face mask.

“And,” she said quietly, “because I’ve asked you not to.”

“You’re very certain of me.”

“I know your kind.”

“And that is …?”

“Why, you are a gentleman.”

He laughed at that. Perhaps this woman wasn’t Fia after all, for once upon a time, at Wanton’s Blush, Fia Merrick had witnessed him at his most un-gentlemanly when he’d betrayed her brother’s friendship. Surely Fia, of all women, would never have
mistaken him for the role his ancient proud lineage ordained but which raw experience had forbade him.

And she did not
act
like Fia who, however outrageous in her behavior, moved and spoke and gestured with exquisite and ladylike grace. This woman moved like a gypsy … and laughed easily and brightly. And her eyes, though they might have been the same color—hard to say, shaded by her mask as they were—sparkled and shimmered with blatant amusement. Fia’s eyes were bright but deep, like glass over dark water—impossible to plumb.

She reached up and caressed his cheek with the back of her fingers. Desire, red-hot and rapacious, instantly awoke and he resented it and she read that, too.

“Faint heart ne’er won a lady, Lord Pirate. Why stop now when we are so close to an understanding?” The whispered voice taunted, yet beneath it lay some other emotion. His anger thinned as he considered the implications. He looked down at the masked countenance, searching for clues as to the identity of its owner.

Was she Fia? And if she wasn’t, what did she seek from him?

“What understanding would that be?” he asked.

“Why”—she tilted her head to a saucy angle—“the understanding that all men strive for and to which all women are eventually privy: You understand how to fulfill your desires and then share your knowledge with me.” Bitterness now, and no attempt to mask it.

“And what of
your
desires?”

“What manner of man ever troubled himself with such concerns?”

“If you think that which might exist between a man and woman ends at the man’s procurement of his pleasure, why would you seek to further the ‘understanding’ between us?”

Her soft, pliant mouth grew taut. She’d not foreseen him questioning her, Thomas realized, and it displeased her. “Fie, sir,” she said irritably, turning away. “You would make labor out of simple pleasure.”

“Something informs me, madam, that no pleasure would be simple with you.”

She turned back smiling, her moods as mercurial as the shifting darks and lights of her gown. “Mayhap, sir, you are right. But pleasure hard won is more oft savored than pleasure chanced upon.”

“You speak obliquely, madam. I pray, be forward.”

“Now of that,” she purred, setting her hands on her hips, “I
have
oft been accused.” A sudden gust of wind whipped her dark raiment about her legs and teased a nimbus of silvery gilt from her head.

“But if forthright speaking you would have, then here’s what I have in mind. A game of chance. A card game.” She gestured toward a lonely, unattended bench a short walk away. “Loo.”

He glanced sideways, instinct urging caution. Be damned, the woman
had
to be Fia. No other female could have set his skin prickling in equal parts awareness and wariness. “And the stakes?”

She touched her lip, posing at rumination. Thomas was not fooled. He was certain that she’d long since decided on the stakes, as he was that every line she’d spoken and every line he’d returned had been if not preordained at the very least anticipated, and that all that had gone before had led him to this place, to making this wager. He disliked the idea of being manipulated so adroitly.

“I know,” she said with no convincing attempt to convey sudden inspiration. “Since you are so certain I am a lady of your prior acquaintance, if you win you have my leave to remove my mask.”

“And should you win?”

“Then”—the torch guttered in brisk wind—“then I win the right to kiss you.”

He smiled wolfishly. “The stakes are patently lopsided. How can I lose?”

Her answering smile was just as smooth as his voice. “Such facile gallantry, sir. I had hoped for more. Though not expected it.”

Her words pricked … as he was sure she’d meant them to. “You don’t warrant kissing you a prize? You value yourself too little.”

“Ah!” She wagged her finger playfully. “How like a man to hear what he wants to hear and not what is said. I said
I
would kiss
you
. Not the other way around.
You
must remain absolutely still.”

His gaze grew hard.

“What say you?” she asked.

At least she’d chosen a game without bias toward
the dealer. He’d never have played her at a game of faro. Carr’s daughter had been raised at the gaming tables, and Fia, if this lady was indeed Fia, already had too many advantages.

“Lead on, lady.”

Chapter 6

T
he first trick is yours, Lord Pirate,” the silver-and-black-clad woman said, drawing a murmur from the small crowd gathered about them.

She’d
done that, made known the nature of their bet, thus assuring them an audience. Even Johnston was amongst the spectators, having hastened over after spying the gorgeous creature who’d wagered a kiss against her unmasking.

Thomas gathered the trick he’d taken: her king of hearts trumped with his king of clubs. His gaze remained fixed on his hand. He led with the ace of spades, knowing she must, if she was void in spades, trump it or lose yet another trick. She trumped in with the eight of clubs.

“That would be mine,” she said, sweeping up the
cards and immediately playing the knave of clubs, another trump.

Thomas pondered. He took the knave with his queen trump and played the eight of spades. She had no spades, which meant she must trump in or lose the trick. If she did not have any more trumps, he did: the nine of clubs. The odds against Fia holding the ten
and
another trump were monumental.

She trumped it with the three of clubs, taking the trick and bringing them even. “The moment of truth,” she whispered.

“Nay, lady, that will be the moment of your unmasking. Enough theater.”

She laid down the ten of clubs. His gaze shot up to meet hers, sparkling in the shadows of her mask.

“I win.”

“This round, lady,” he conceded. He stood up. “I look forward to you collecting your winnings.”

She rose, too. “You have not long to wait, for I would take my prize now.”

He regarded her coldly. “A public spectacle out of what began as a private wager? I think not.”